Report: South African Banks Implicated in Facilitating Fund Transfers to Hamas

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The Al-Quds Foundation is a worldwide group sanctioned in the United States and outlawed in Israel.

By Vered Weiss

According to an investigative report by The Jerusalem Post, South African financial organizations are actively funding Hamas by way of the sanctioned Al-Quds Foundation through accounts registered at mainstream South African banks, such as Standard Bank, Nedbank and Absa.

The Al-Quds Foundation is a worldwide group sanctioned in the United States and outlawed in Israel which pretends to be a charitable organization to help Gazans but generates funds to support Hamas’ terror activities.

The US Treasury sanctioned The Al-Quds Foundation in 2012 for “being controlled and acting on behalf of Hamas.”

However, there are branches of the organization internationally, including in South Africa, where it operates under the name “Al-Quds Foundation SA,” directed by Sheik Ebrahim Gabriels who runs many smaller organizations that seem to be charity organizations, but which have ties with Hamas.

Gabriels has also met with and been photographed with a number of high-profile terrorists, such as Ismail Haniyeh.

However, the Al Quds Foundation SA with an account in South Africa’s Absa Bank was barred from transferring money, and instead they used an account belonging to the Baitul Maqdis Foundation.

Documents show a transfer was made to Al-Quds Foundation SA from Baitul Maqdis through a Standard Bank account.

Although the Baitul Maqdis Foundation claims to be an NPO, no official records were found confirming that it was registered as an organization, very little information appears on online searches and its Facebook page is nearly blank.

However, the Baitul Maqdis Foundation has a bank account at Nedbank which it uses to transfer funds from overseas to Al-Quds Foundation South Africa.

Baitul Maqdis is close to a traditional Islamic name for Jerusalem (Bayt Al-Maqdis), as is Al-Quds.

Sheik Hamid al-Ahmar is responsible for transferring funds from South Africa to the Lebanese branch of Hamas.

The day after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7th, Al-Ahmar called on the Houthis in Yemen to “turn statements into an act of support for the struggles and the sacrifices of the Palestinian people.”